Best Practices: 8 Steps to Network Neutrality

Kurt Marko11/02/11

8 Steps to Achieve Network Neutrality

The consumer electronics market is riding the success of smartphones and tablets into a post-PC era, even as the consumerization of technology has a profound effect within most organizations—notably in weakening IT's stranglehold on employees' client device, operating system and application choices. In particular, the popularity of the iPhone and iPad has created a halo affect for the Mac; Apple's PC market share is the highest it’s been in years. While many IT departments don't officially provide support, as with the iPhone before it, MacBooks are increasingly coming in the back door. It's difficult for IT to just say no when a senior executive asks for help connecting a Mac to the corporate file shares or email system.

In short, the age of "you can have any PC you want as long as it’s beige and running Windows" is over, and that’s a good thing. The prospect of device heterogeneity needn’t be a scary one, for end users or application support organizations. In this report, we'll offer eight tips for network neutrality that collectively can grant alternative clients equal citizenship in (formerly) Windows-dominated enterprises. (S3931111)